In another take on the game of what Google suggests while searching, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz for The New York Times looked at queries related to pregnant women. Some searches were similar across countries, whereas others varied culturally.
Start with questions about what pregnant women can do safely. The top questions in the United States: Can pregnant women “eat shrimp,” “drink wine,” “drink coffee” or “take Tylenol”?
But other countries don’t look much like the United States or one another. Whether pregnant women can “drink wine” is not among the top 10 questions in Canada, Australia or Britain. Australia’s concerns are mostly related to eating dairy products while pregnant, particularly cream cheese. In Nigeria, where 30 percent of the population uses the Internet, the top question is whether pregnant women can drink cold water.
Stephens-Davidowitz’s analysis is mostly anecdotal but a fun read.
I want to see something like this direct from Google, with more rigor. Now that would be interesting.
